How the World Made the West

'One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years' William Dalrymple

'Quinn has done a lot more than reinvent the wheel. What we have here is a truly encyclopaedic and monumental account of the ancient world' The Times

Ancient Greece and Rome are considered the parents of Western civilisation. But the ancient world was much more interconnected than we realise - a place of constant exchange, commerce and theft, sex, war and enslavement.

Journeying from the Levant of 2500 BC to the dawn of the Age of Exploration, Josephine Quinn argues that the roots of the West can be found in everything from Indian mathematics to the chariots of the Steppe, from Arabic poetry to the Phoenician art of sailing. The result is an epic and revelatory history of our shared past.

About the Author

Josephine Quinn is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge, the first woman to hold this Chair. She has degrees from Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley, has taught in America, Italy and at Oxford, and co-directed the Tunisian–British archaeological excavations at Utica. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, as well as to radio and television programmes. She is the author of one previous book, the award-winning In Search of the Phoenicians.

Praise for How the World Made the West

'Superb, refreshing and full of delights, this is world history at its best.'
– Simon Sebag-Montefiore

'Full of little gem-like shifts of perspective.'
– Guardian

'Scintillates with its focus on the unexpected.'
– Economist

'A work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination.'
– Rory Stewart

'This is, in every way, a big book.'
– Times Literary Supplement

Longlisted for the Cundill History Prize 2025

A Book of the Year for: The Times/Sunday Times, Observer, Economist, Guardian, BBC History Magazine, i-paper and History Today